Timshel
by Grav
Summary: When Fili, born blond and squalling, is passed to Thorin instead of a father for his public naming, Dwalin says nothing, because it is not his place. Dis/Dwalin
1. Chapter 1

**AN**: Headcanon time! I read a story by inkling on AO3 where Fili and Kili had different, unknown fathers, so that they could only ever be claimed by the Line of Durin. And then this happened. Also I've noticed a few people calling Gloin's wife _Hervor_, but I chose not to.

**Spoilers**: The Hobbit

**Rating**: Teen.

**Disclaimer**: Not mine. Not mine at all.

**Warnings**: Canon compliant character death.

**Characters/Pairing**: Dis/Dwalin, Dis, Dwalin, Thorin, Balin, Fili, Kili, Gloin, Gloin's wife, Gimli.

**Summary**: When Fili, born blond and squalling, is passed to Thorin instead of a father for his public naming, Dwalin says nothing, because it is not his place.

* * *

**Chapter One**

When Fili, born blond and squalling, is passed to Thorin instead of a father for his public naming, Dwalin says nothing, because it is not his place.

He understands, Mahal quench them all, why she has done it, why Dis, a princess of the highest blood has chosen to give her brother kin to whom only he can lay claim, but the emptiness beside her gnaws at him in a way he thought he'd buried before Azanulbizar. He says nothing, but he has memorized the measuring look in her eyes, the way she stood and watched, the way she sighed. When Fili is four, and Dis sighs enough to break stone, he does not miss it.

And, this time, Dwalin does not hold his peace.

He finds his courage quickly. She cannot best him at strength or arms, but she has never needed to: she holds his heart and knows it, though she has been kind enough to not press her advantage. He is not the strategist of the family, he does not have his brother's cunning, but he marshals his arguments, clumsy and half-formed, and specifically lacking all the things he's promised himself he'll never tell her.

"And I swear to you," he concludes, desperately staring over her shoulder to avoid eye contact, "I'll swear on whatever you will, I'll never lay claim to any child of yours."

She reaches up, her hands on either side of his face, and pulls him down to look at her. He follows her lead. If he cannot look at her now, he has no right at all to that which he has just suggested. Her eyes are stormy, lighter than her brother's and much, much more deadly, but Dwalin does not drop his gaze.

"Dwalin," she says, so quietly and with so much feeling that he can almost imagine it for the feeling he has always craved.

"I don't need an answer right away," he tells her, not sure for whom he is softening the blow. "I know it is no easy choice. I understand if you wish…" He cannot finish the sentence.

"If I wish to allow any rambler into my bed?" she says, some bite to her tone. Her nails press against his jaw, the shadow of a threat.

"No!" he says. "No, it is your right to choose whomever you will, and not my place to stand in judgement even if I did disapprove."

"Which you do not?" she says.

"I do not," he tells her. "Our life here is hard, and we are forced to make more choices than we would otherwise."

"I bore my son for Thorin, and for Erebor," Dis says. "And nothing else."

"My princess," he says to her, even though she is not his alone, "I would give Erebor everything I have as well."

She draws him in, further, and the kiss she bestows upon his mouth is not like the others she has gifted him over the years. This is not the kiss of a sister, nor a cousin, and it is not the kiss of a princess to her faithful guardsman. That affection and friendship have long been his, and he has been content to bide with it. Now, for the first time, he feels the forge-fire of her touch, the hammer of his heart and hers, as they are worked by a common smith.

She closes the space he had left between them, and his hands find her waist of their own accord. Her fingers thread into his beard, and her mouth falls open under his. The fire rages through him now, different from the fire of battle and certainly more welcome, as their tongue meet, and she presses against him.

"Mama!" comes a shout from the hallway, as the front door crashes open and Fili barrels across the threshold. "Mama, is Mister Dwalin here? His hammer is leaning up against the wall under the bell!"

They break apart before he rounds the corner and finds them, and are standing a respectable distance from one another again by the time he skids to halt. Then he smiles, and flings himself into Dwalin's arms, to be caught up and swung above his head, giggling madly as he passes within a hair's breadth of the ceiling beams. When Dwalin sets him down, Dis is laughing, but there is a solemn promise in her eyes.

* * *

"What is this?" Dis says, brandishing his packed bedroll as though it has offended her deeply.

"I thought you would want me gone," he says. He cannot look at her. "I thought – I thought it might be easier. For you."

She takes a long time in answering, and he fears the worst. She had made the announcement at dinner, to everyone, that she is expecting again. Thorin had led several toasts, and laughed more than Dwalin had seen since Fili was born. He had not expected her to tell him first, but he finds that suddenly she is dearer to him than she has been in decades, and he's not sure he can bear to watch her grow heavy with child, even his.

"For me?" she asks, putting the bedroll down. She doesn't touch him. She will probably never touch him again. "Or for you?"

He says nothing. He has promised that there will never be anything to say. But by the Maker, the words he could give to her right now. They eat him up with wanting out, and it takes some effort to swallow them back down.

"If you want," she says, and stills. "If you can. If it is not too hard. I would have you stay."

He stays.

* * *

To be continued...


	2. Chapter 2

When Kíli, born dark and quiet though the wind howls outside the window, is passed to Thorin instead of a father for his public naming, Dwalin says nothing, because it is not his place.

Instead he waits while first Thorin, then Balin, and then Glóin takes his turn examining the babe. If Balin sees anything of his brother in Kíli's eyes, he keeps it to his own counsel. Glóin, newly married himself, has a look to him as he cradles the baby in his arms, and Dwalin can only hope that soon the boys will have another playmate.

When he finally holds Kíli – so small he can nearly balance him in one hand – and Fíli comes over to stand with him, Dwalin feels Dís' eyes on them, and knows that his resolve will crumble. He does not regret a moment, not his proposal or his actions, but this is worse than he had expected. He has made things before, of course, intricately wrought in steel, and gold, when times were better. He has felt that hot possessiveness inherent to his kind. It pales like a cold winter night to the heat that burns him now.

She knows – must have known – the feelings that would be stoked in him, the fire that would come to burn so bright. Her eyes are triumphant, but shadowed by regret, when he meets them. She is sorry that the cost will be his to pay, but she would do it again in a heartbeat. And he knows, even in the part of the fire that burns the hottest, that he would too.

"Fíli," he says, his voice, by some miracle, level. "Would you like to hold your brother?"

The lads return to their mother, to their family, and Thorin wraps his arms around all three of them. They make a pretty picture, happy and hopeful and warm, and when Balin pulls him out of the room to allow them some time to themselves, Dwalin does not resist.

* * *

The boys grow. Glóin's wife bears a strong son too, and names him in the fashion of his cousins, so that they will have that in common with their family. Dwalin teaches them to fight, and they love him for it, but it is Thorin who teaches them to smith, the true craft of their people, and the right of the parent to impart. He tells himself that it is for the best. Thorin is a better smith than he is, at any rate, and certainly a more patient instructor. They are raised on stories and songs as much as they are on metal and meat, and if they are arrogant for it, it befits their place as Thorin's heirs.

They move from town to town, following Thorin and Balin as they look for work. Dwalin takes jobs now and then, guarding caravans and the like, but Thorin has stated more than once that he rests easier when the boys have a guardian. The towns of Men are rough, and rife with prejudice, and the young badgers are as hot-headed as any of their family when it comes to personal insult. Dís is more than capable of their protection, of course, but her shrewd head is needed more at the market where the bulk of their trades and bartering takes place.

So it is left to Dwalin to keep the dwarrows out of trouble. He is not always entirely successful: no child can be monitored all the time, and so when Fíli comes home nursing a black eye, with Kíli trying to hearten him, Dwalin can only provide a cold cloth and wait for them to tell the story. Eventually it comes to light that one of the human children had mocked Fíli for being fatherless, and Fíli had tried to knock him over in spite of the sizable difference in height.

"Ah, lad," Dwalin says, the old ache in his heart. "Men do not understand that your mother's blood is all you need, and worth more than anything else in this piss-poor excuse for a village."

"What do we need of fathers anyway?" Kíli says reassuringly. "We have Mister Dwalin, and Uncle Thorin too."

Dwalin has been hit by axes that hurt less, but he doesn't flinch. When Dís gets home, he tells her of what transpired, and she takes her sons to task for fighting, though she also commends their loyalty to their House.

The following morning, Dwalin is offered employ on a caravan going south, to a faraway city of Men. Thorin is with him when the offer is made, and encourages him to take it, turning aside all protests.

"Your badgers will be fine," Thorin says. "Oin and Glóin are coming, and the family as well. We will be well cared for, and I know you tarry here for my own well-mindedness. I cannot hold you here forever."

It goes unspoken that they also need the coin, because they always do.

"As you wish, my prince," Dwalin says, and the matter is settled. Dwalin will go south with the traders, and send what money and news he can to where ever Thorin calls home.

This time, he tells Dís before he begins packing, and she holds her anger at bay. Kíli first tries to convince him to stay, bribing him with promises and, finally, tears, and then packs his own gear for the road. Dwalin does him the courtesy of not laughing when he sees what the boy thinks is necessary for a long trip, and helps him put everything away again when Dís insists that they clean up before they have dinner.

In the morning, when Dís and her sleepy sons bid him farewell, she is every inch the proud princess of Erebor, and gives no indication of how desperately she'd clung to him, all throughout the night before his leaving.

He does not see any of them again for many years.

* * *

To be continued...


	3. Chapter 3

Gimli, who has nearly recovered from the slight of being left behind, brings her dinner to the forge. It is the place where Thorin and Balin had smithed, and where Dwalin would have, had he ever come there. It is plain and the air circulation is poor, but it works enough to have secured their income for the half century since their arrival. It is the place where her sons learned to wield hammers and to tell the worth of metal. Here, in the rustic Blue Mountains, they were family.

And yet, she has never been still here. It is not the same restlessness that plagues her brother, that same longing for another Mountain, far away, but that is what she pretends, when anyone asks. She has never lied to Fíli. She truly does not know where his father is, what became of him. She lies to Kíli, though, and it pains her more than she ever guessed it would.

If only he would come! Thorin keeps him busy on the road, gathering news from the settlements of Men and travelling to all possible colonies of their own people. From time to time, Balin would to go meet him, and bring back trinkets for the boys, but always Dwalin is kept away by Thorin's business, and she cannot complain because she has made the choices that have led them all here.

She still has no regrets. When her brother needed allies, numbers to make up the lucky fourteen, her sons had been counted among his Company. There is no other to gainsay her decision or theirs, and Thorin is grateful for it. She had hoped they would meet in her halls before they left, but instead they go south, to a place where the Wizard knew of another ally. She sees her sons march away, spends two weeks consoling Gimli, and then turns to the forge like she never has in all her life.

Spring, summer and fall pass, and there is no word. Conversations die when she enters a room, and only Glóin's family will meet her gaze. She packs and unpacks a dozen times as Durin's Day draws close, and for the first time, fear creeps into her heart, and only the fire and the hammer can clear her mind of it.

She eats with Gimli, and he tells her who he has seen on the road. There is something in the air she cannot name, but she feels it whispering in her hair and beard, and knows when Gimli shifts uncomfortably that he can feel it too. Something is coming, for good or ill. Something has changed.

There is a cry in the distance, and then the raven comes.

* * *

She has not hurried here, letting the ponies pick their own pace, but they can feel the bite of winter on their heels, so they do not linger in the Wild. Dís was surprised to find herself reluctant to leave the Blue Mountains at all, restless as she had been before the raven's coming. Thorin's Halls in Ered Luin are wooden and warm, for all they do not have the grandeur of her childhood, and they are a welcome change after years of suffering and wandering through villages of Men. Thorin was never content there, but Balin came to be, and to her sons, it was the only home they had ever known.

Then came the news of her sons' and brother's passing, and the journey east could not be put off any longer.

The sun is shining when Dís arrives at the foot of the Lonely Mountain, but a shadow lies over the peak. She wonders if it is only in her heart or caused by some stain of goblin blood, but the wind is high and when the cloud moves on, she sees that it is nothing to be concerned about. The ravens who brought her the tidings of the dragon's death have made the journey between her and the Mountain often enough that she has missed no news, heartening or heartbreaking.

The Men of Dale are silent as their party passes through. They know who, and what, she is. What she has gained and lost. They are a small party, fourteen only to match her brother's Company, but they are wives and sisters and mothers, and they will take the respect that they are due.

A horn sounds at the Front Gate, and five dwarves emerge. Four wear armour, but their weapons are sheathed. The fifth has a bright red hood and a snow-white beard, and Dís's heart lightens to see him. Beside him, taller than all his comrades, is Dwalin. She does not know what she will say. Then Glóin, who stands at Balin's right shoulder, can contain himself no longer. He runs down the causeway, barrelling towards them with all the speed and strength of a winter storm. Gimli is off his pony and past her, iron shod boots tramping on the stones of the causeway, and his mother is close behind him.

Dís cannot begrudge them their joy in one another as they crash together at the midpoint of the causeway, a tangle of arms and shields and bright red hair. Oin, moving more sedately, reaches them and is immediately drawn in. Behind him, Dori and Balin wear guarded smiles, and Dwalin, the last, cannot look at them at all.

"My lady," Balin says, when Dís has drawn close enough to hear him without shouting. He speaks no further words of greeting to her, but his eyes tell her everything he hasn't the heart to put voice to._ I am glad you have come_. And _I wish, I do wish…_

Dwalin has eyes only for her, waiting to see if she will bend or break. She does neither, because she does not return his gaze. There are too many witnesses, and this grief of theirs is too old, too secret, for her to lay it bear upon the Mountainside.

"We've arranged quarters for everyone," Dori says, just before the silence grows intolerable. He looks older now, but remains as fussy and efficient as ever. "If you will leave the ponies here?"

So it is that Dís enters Erebor on her own two feet, surrounded by her cousins, the only family she has remaining.

* * *

To be continued...


	4. Chapter 4

The Great Hall is in ruins, the carvings on the walls shattered and the decorations long ago torn down by sharp claws. But the pillars are sound, the roof secure, and it is the only room within the mountain that is big enough to suit this purpose. Once, the Great Hall was for feasts and celebrations. Now it shall see a funeral.

Dwarves and Elves and Men stand next to one another, not quite comrades, not yet, but with greater understanding of one another than in the days before. Three stone beds stand below the table where Thror once feasted, Thorin ahead so that Fíli and Kíli might lie next to one another, and Dain stands by his kinsman's head. Gandalf, Beorn, and the Halfling stand to the side, and around and behind them stand the warriors of Elves and Men who won the most renown in the fight Men already call the Battle of the Five Armies. There stands Bard, slayer of the dragon, and there also Tauriel and Legolas, and the Elvenking himself.

The remnants of Thorin's company stand in front of the biers of their princes and king. Nori leans upon a crutch and Bifur's eyes are glazed, but they will live and prosper in the kingdom they've reclaimed, should they choose to.

Dís is the last to enter the hall, and a hush falls over it when she does. Glóin releases his wife's hand, and kisses the top of Gimli's head, though his son is too old and almost too tall for such a display. He goes to stand beside his brother, and the others muster themselves into two line to flank Dís's walk to where her sons and brother lie.

The Great Hall should echo, should ring with sound when it is so full. But there is nothing, save the breathing of the assembled host and Dís's footsteps upon the scratched and much-marred floor. She passes the dwarves of her brother's company, and does not see them, their faces set in stone or marred by stoic tears. Outside her kin, she does not know them well, has not yet learned that they loved her sons and followed her brother through fire and water because they chose to see him as a king when he had nothing to be king of.

When she reaches them, she cannot keep her hands still. They have been prepared with utmost care, but she has not seen them, has not touched them one last time. She straightens the braids that frame Fíli's mouth, and smooths non-existent stands of hair behind his ears. They have not braided Kíli's hair. He will go to Mahal as unkempt as ever, but she twists the lock that falls across his forehead.

They are, both of them, so cold.

At last she stands at Thorin's feet, the weight of the Mountain above her head. The Arkenstone gleams upon his breast, and an unfamiliar elven blade rests at his side. His clothes are new, funeral-made, but his boots are stained and worn. They bore him this far, and will take him no further.

Behind her, one of dwarves begins to hum. It's a cracked sound that wavers on the edge of tunelessness, before it hardens into a familiar buzz. The others pick it up, but do not add the words. Without looking, she knows that they are leaving it to her. She brings her hands to her face, to the beaded necklace that frames her beard, and winds her fingers into it.

_Far over the misty mountains cold  
Through dungeons deep and caverns old_

The tearing sound is muffled by the voices behind her, but the pain roars in her ears. She pulls harder, chunks of her beard coming out as she tears the necklace from where it hangs in the hair that lines her jaw and chin.

_We must away  
Ere break of day_

She cannot finish the song, she feels she will never sing again, and places the necklace between her brother's feet. She feels the flood coming, and builds stone walls around her heart to prevent it. Not here. Not where so many will see.

The dwarves move forward, ten survivors plus Gimli and another cousin from the Iron Hills. Dwalin is supposed to stand at Thorin's head, to carry him below, but he stops at Dís's shoulder, as though he can go no further. Dain meets his eye and nods, understanding that Dwalin's loyalty is to living, and then moves to take his place. When Kíli passes them, Dwalin's hand begins to reach out on its own accord, but he pulls it back before anyone besides Dís has time to notice.

At last, the Great Hall is emptied of the dead and whispers of those who remain grow gradually louder. Dís doesn't move, they will say after that she turned to stone as they watched, but when Glóin's wife comes forward to take her hand and draw her away from the crowd, she goes, and Dwalin follows.

* * *

"You've your own who'll want to see you." Dís can hear the murmured voices in the corridor outside her quarters.

"She shouldn't be alone," is the reply.

"She won't be." And then a pause, and Dís knows that an understanding has been reached.

It's Dwalin who comes back in. He stands on the threshold, uncertain as always of his welcome. He has new scars, some quite recent and some less so. It makes sense that he should. It has been a long count of years since she has seen him.

"You can put your coat on the chair," she says. There is only the chair and the bed. The dragon has ruined so much of her old home, and she is lucky to have a space of her own in these new days.

He moves slowly, laying aside coat, hammer, axes, armour, and lining up his heavy boots in front of the hearth. At last he is clad only in his tunic and hose, and he comes to sit beside her on the new mattress.

"I do not think I will stay," he says, at length. "In the Mountain, I mean."

"We have halls still in the Blue Mountains," she reminds him. "You have always had a place there, though you have never seen it."

"Thorin spoke of them, when we met in the Wild," Dwalin says. "And Kíli…"

"Kíli had a room he insisted was yours," Dís says. "They kept their toys in it after they outgrew them. It's still there."

Silence falls between them, sad and yet not overwhelming. Already they plan for the future and do not let themselves be crushed by the weight of the past. Dís leans on his shoulder, and his arm comes around her back.

"Will you stay?" he asks.

"No," she says. "There is no place for me here, save in mourning. My work is in Ered Luin."

"I will follow you there, if I may," he says.

"Yes," she says. "Always."

* * *

To be continued...


	5. Chapter 5

They winter Under the Mountain, and spend long nights deep in conversation. Around them, a kingdom is rebuilt and glory is restored, but it stirs neither of their hearts the way it might have, had things gone otherwise. Dwalin fears at first that there will be whispers; that they do not help, that they keep to themselves too much, but Dís's reputation, as his own as one of the Company, stills most wagging tongues, and stifles murmurs before they can become thoroughly voiced.

They sit before the hearth at arm's length as he tells her of their adventures in the Wild, close enough to brush shoulders as he tells her of the Battle, and together, together as she tells him of the years that he had missed.

"I had thought to tell them," she says, at length, when the winter has almost passed them by. "Had Thorin won the day. Would you have given your leave?"

"It was never mine to give," he says.

"It wasn't then," she admits, "But you are also of the House of Durin. As I recall, it was one of arguments. It would not have lessened either of their claims, had they chosen to make it known to all our people."

"I left them, Dís," he says, after a long moment. "I left all of you."

"And we missed you," she says. "There were times when you supported us more than Thorin could. The halls they grew up in weren't built by your hands, but they may as well have been."

"It's not the same," he says. "Better they think of their Uncle than of me."

"They thought of you, in any case," she says.

"Aye, you've told me," he huffs the ghost of a laugh, one of few since Thorin fell. "I have a whole playroom to call my own."

"It was more than that," Dís says. "They would play at fighting, and they would always make Gimli be the accursed Defiler so that they could be Thorin and you."

The laughter rumbles in both of them, now, warm underneath the fur, and echoes off the hard walls of the chamber. They have neither of them turned to stone.

"They used to argue, too," she continues, "after Kíli turned to the bow, that he couldn't be you, because you'd never be caught with so elvish a weapon."

"I might have changed my tune on that," he says. "That bow kept us fed for a goodly portion of our travels. It's difficult to hunt with hammer and axe."

"It kept us fed too," Dís says. "Even as the halls began to prosper and we could afford more meat in trade. It did them good, the pair of them, to contribute."

She wanders into memory then, he can tell by the cant of her head. The firelight gleams off of her rings, and catches the silver in her hair. Her beard is growing in, but she will never hang finery from it again. She will carrying her rank differently now.

"Did Thorin know?" he asks. It is the one question that has haunted him throughout the years and his time away. That perhaps his King and friend had known, and while he could not disapprove of his sister or the son she'd borne, he could disapprove of the father. Dwalin was too recognizable a warrior and loyal hammer to dismiss entirely, but he could be removed from the situation, had Thorin desired it.

"No," she says, and his heart is eased. "He never asked. Never presumed to judge. When they were badgers, the boys would ask, now and then. Especially after Gimli was born. But as they grew, they understood. It was our family, and it was Erebor, and it was bigger than them."

"And still you might have told them?" he asks.

"No," she says, and, "Never. But I did like to dream." His breath catches. He will not ask. It has been too long, and they have missed too much.

"We're not elves, with nothing but long years to deliberate," she says. He cannot disagree. "We are makers. We must make decisions and live with them. And then we must make more."

"Then we shall," he says, stirring under the furs, and feeling, for the first time in months, the call to move. "The River Running is frozen still, in Dale, but every day the ice grows thinner."

"When the water runs clear to the Lake, we will be ready," she says. "I will speak to Dáin, and you to your brother. There is no call for a large party, I think?"

"Gandalf and the Halfling seemed to think they would do well enough in the Wild," Dwalin says. "And we can take the path through Mirkwood, if you don't mind traveling with elves."

"How times have changed," she says, and laughs.

"How indeed," he replies, though he cannot say that he minds.

* * *

"I will not marry," she says, when, at last, they stand outside the doors. The hall is bright, and there is a feast laid out to welcome them home. "And there will be no more badgers to bite at your ankles. But there will be a fire and a place to sleep, and my company, for however long you wish it."

"That has always been enough," he says.

"Liar," she tells him, and he does not correct her. "But we are older now. And it may be that you are right."

* * *

_And so Dwalin, son of Fundin, came to the Blue Mountains and took up Thorin's seat in the halls there. And there did he dwell, and live full years beyond that which is usually given to his kind._

_And the Lady Dís consented to her addition to the Line of the Dwarves or Erebor to honour her sons, for their fathers' lines remain unknown, and she would have them remembered by her people, and by those who seek to learn the Histories of Middle Earth. And of her life and legacy, no more can be said._  
-An addendum, from Gimli, son of Glóin, to The Latter Days of the House of Éorl (translation)

**finis**

* * *

NOTES:

Yes, I messed around with most people's ages. It seems to be stylish. Fíli and Kíli are basically their canonical ages, but Dwalin and Dís are closer in age to Thorin. I also messed a bit with when Dwalin left Erebor, since Gloin says he's still there at the Council of Elrond.

Dis has no listed husband, and if she had, theoretically her sons would have been listed by their father's house instead of hers. So that's the opening I took. I have no idea who Fíli's father is, but the Dwalin-as-Kíli's-father idea came to be largely because of the scene in the movie where Kíli is all "Mister Dwalin!" and claps him on the shoulder. That is the first time they've seen each other in half a century.

The Latter Days of the House of Éorl is a half-written history I've been working on for about half a decade, chronicling the lives of the children of Éomer and Lothíriel. It is written predominantly by their third son, Éodoc the Blackfingered, but additions of Dwarvish History were made by Gimli, Lord of the Glittering Caves, at the behest of King Elessar. Éodoc served primarily as a translator for Gimli's writings having been…you know what? I should totally write that story.

Gravity_Not_Included, January 31, 2013


End file.
